Aug. 6. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



121 



to the singular, for, wanting a rhyme to contents, 

 the nominative to presents must be singular, and 

 that nominative was the prououn of contents. 

 Since, therefore, the plural die and the singular it 

 could not both be referable to the same noun con- 

 tents, by silently substituting die for dies, Mr. 

 Collier has blinded his reader and wronged his 

 author. The purport of the passage amounts to 

 this: i\xQ contents, or structure (to wit, of the show 

 to be exhibited), breaks down in the performer's 

 zeal to the subject which it presents. Johnson 

 very properly adduces a much happier expression 

 of the same thought from A Midsummei' Night's 

 Dreame : 



" Hip. I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharged ; 

 And duty in his service perishing." 



The reader cannot fail to have observed the fault- 

 less punctuation of the Folios in the forecited 

 passage, and I think concur with me, that like 

 many, ay, most others, all it craves at the hands 

 of editors and commentators is, to be left alone. 

 The last two lines ask for no explanation even to 

 the blankest mind. Words like contents are by no 

 means rare in English. We have tidings and news, 

 both singular and plural. Mr. Collier himself 

 rebukes Malone for his ignorance of such usage 

 of the latter word. If it be said that these two 

 examples have no singular form, whereas contents 

 has, there is means, at any rate precisely ana- 

 logous. On the other hand, so capricious is lan- 

 guage, in defiance of the logic of thought, we have, 

 if I may so term it, a merely auricular plural, in 

 the word corpse referred to a single carcase. 



I should here close my account with " N. & Q." 

 were it not that I have an act of justice to per- 

 form. When I first lighted upon the two ex- 

 amples of chaumbre in Udall, I thought, as we say 

 in this country, it was a good " fundlas," and re- 

 garded it as my own property. It now appears to 

 be but a waif or stray ; therefore, suum cuique, I 

 cheerfully resign the credit of it to Mr. Singer, 

 the rightful proprietary. Proffering them for the 

 inspection of learned and unlearned, I of course 

 foresaw that speedy sentence would be pronounced 

 by that division, whose judgment, lying ebb and 

 close to the surface, must needs first reach the 

 light. I know no more appropriate mode of re- 

 quiting the handsome manner in which Mb. Singer 

 has been pleased to speak of my trifling contribu- 

 tions to " N. & Q.," than by asking him, with all 

 the modesty of which I am master, to reconsider 

 the passage in Romeo and Juliet; for though his 

 substitution (j-umourers vice runawai/es') may, I 

 think, clearly take the wall of any of its rivals, yet, 

 believing that Juliet invokes a darkness to shroud 

 her lover, under cover of which even the fugitive 

 from justice might snatch a wink of sleep, 1 must 

 for my own part, as usual, still adhere to the 

 authentic text. W. R. Areowsmitu. 



P. S. — In answer to a Bloomsbury Querist 

 (^''ol. viii., p. 44.), I crave leave to say that I never 

 have met with the verb perccyuer except in Ilawes, 

 loc. cit. ; and I gave the latest use that I could call 

 to mind of the noun in my paper on that word. 

 Unhappily I never make notes, but rely entirely on 

 a somewhat retentive memory ; therefore the in- 

 stances that occur on the spur of the moment are 

 not always the most apposite that might be selected 

 for the purpose of illustration. If, however, he 

 will take the trouble to refer to a little book, con- 

 sisting of no more than 448 pages, published in 

 1576, and entitled A Panoplie of JSpistles, or a 

 Looking-glasse for the Vnleai-ned, by Abraham 

 Flemming, he will find no fewer than nine ex- 

 amples, namely, at pp. 25. 144. 178. 253. 277. 285. 

 (twice in the same page) 333. 382. It excites 

 surprise that the word never, as far as I am aware, 

 occurs in any of the voluminous works of Sir 

 Thomas More, nor in any of the theological pro- 

 ductions of the Reformers. 



With respect to speare, the orthography varies, 

 as spere, sperr, sparr, unspar; but in the Prologue 

 to Troilus and Cressida, sperre is Theobald's cor- 

 rection of stirre, in Folios '23 and '32. Let me 

 add, what I had forgotten at the time, that an- 

 other instance of hudde intransitive, to bend, oc- 

 curs at p. 105. of The Life of Faith in Death, by 

 Samuel Ward, preacher of Ipswich, London, 1622. 

 Also another, and a very significant one, of the 

 phrase to have on the hip, in Fuller's Historic of the 

 Holy Warre, Cambridge, 1647 : 



" Arnuljjhus was as quiet as a lambe, and durst never 

 challenge his interest in Jerusalem from Godfrey's do- 

 nation ; as fearing to wrestle with the king, who had 

 him on the hip, and could out him at pleasure for his 

 bad manners." — Book ii. chap. viii. p. 55. 



In my note on the word tt-ash, I said (somewhat 

 too peremptorily) that overtop was not even a 

 hunting term (Vol. vii., p. 567.). At the moment. 

 I had forgotten the following passage : 



" Therefore I would perswade all lovers of hunting; 

 to get two or three couple of tryed hounds, and once or 

 twice a week to follow after them a train-scent ; and 

 when he is able to top them on all sorts of earth, and to 

 endure heats and colds stoutly, then he may the better 

 relie on his speed and toughness." — The Hunting-horse, 

 chap. vii. p. 71., Oxford, 1685. 



SNEEZING AN OMEN AND A DEITT. 



In the Odyssey, xvii. 541-7., we have, imitating 

 the hexameters, the following passage : 



" Thus Penelope spake. Then quickly Telcmachus 



sneez'd loud, 

 Sounding around all the building: his mother, with 



smiles at her son, said, 

 Swiftly addressing her rapid and high-toned words to 



Eumaeus, 



